Cream

No man had ever done that to her. She had lived for more than half a century, and for more than half that time, she had been married to a man who never touched her feet.

She moaned. She couldn't help it.

His hands were big, and warm, and they kneaded her aching feet, pressing and rubbing and squeezing, sliding his fingers slowly, achingly between her toes, pressing his thumbs into her arch, and she melted, like cold butter on a hot griddle. She felt wanton, and all her lady parts tingled with a mixture of need and anticipation. She swallowed the next moan, but could not keep from moving her legs, to try and ease the ache that was building inside her.

He noticed.

She knew he did, because his hands paused in their seduction of her through her feet, and one hand trailed teasingly up to grasp her ankle and pull her leg back straight. She smiled, and tried to relax. He finished her left foot, and moved to treat her right with the same bone-meltingly exquisite attention.

She had long since given up any attempt at holding back her absolute enjoyment of his ministrations. She also gave up pretending to herself that she was not as turned on, as stimulated, as powerfully aware of every touch of his hands, of every breath she breathed, as she had ever been. She didn't know enough about men, after having spent so long with only one, to know whether or not it had been his intention to arouse her beyond her ability to control it, and she didn't know how he would react if she let her guard down enough to let him know.

She waited till she thought that he was done, and then tried to sit up. His hands on her her ankles held her in place.

"You're so tense," he murmured. "I can help you with that."

She shivered, although it was the middle of an unusually warm summer, and they were in the solarium, with a heating sun beaming through the glass windows.

"I know you're busy, Bram," she said, feeling foolish not being able to see his face as she tried to deny herself the pleasure of his hands wherever he wanted them on her person.

"I took the afternoon off," he said, "because we haven't had a minute to ourselves since last week."

He paused, and trailed a lazy finger up the outside of her left leg, from ankle to knee, and she gasped, as though he had delivered a stinging jolt of electricity to her.

"You promised me you'd think about my proposal," he added, finally releasing her ankles and helping her to sit up. "I hate to see how hard you're working, and how tired you are when we meet for lunch every week. If you trust me, we can make a go of this, and then I won't need to massage your feet again." A small pause, then, "Unless you ask, of course."

She raised herself up on her elbows and faced him for the first time since her lady parts began pushing her to jump his bones.

"That was really lovely, Bram," she said with a smile, and wished she could mask the huskiness of her voice.

"I'm happy you liked it." His answering smile lit up the whole of his usually stern face, and she struggled to keep her eyes off his lips, which she had always found to be far too succulent for her peace of mind. She had only ever felt them on her cheeks, but every kiss, though innocent, had left her all atwitter, like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

She tried to stand, and found her legs were jelly. Sitting down again abruptly, she said, her face flaming,

"I would offer to make you dinner, but it seems I no longer have the use of my legs."

She tried to make light of the fact that he had completely disarmed her, but her damp panties attested to the stark truth.

"A good massage usually has that effect," he assured her, his eyes telling her there was more he wished to say. "I'm okay for now," he ended, and went around to sit behind her. "Why don't you just relax and let me ease away the knots in your shoulders, hmm? I can see by the way you're holding yourself that you could use some loosening up there, too."

Without waiting for her approval, he set his hands to work, kneading and rubbing away at her shoulders and upper arms. He touched more than her skin as he traced the tight muscles with his palms, rolled them beneath his knuckles, and smoothed them with his stiffened fingers. She fought to keep cool when he placed his hands on either side of the column of her neck and wrapped his fingers round her throat while his nimble thumbs worked her into a frenzy. She swallowed the gasps of pleasure, and wondered that she could feel so aroused when the part of her brain that still worked registered pain in the places where she was tightest wound. She closed her eyes, and tried to hold on to her tenuous control.

"Let go," he whispered in her ear, sending shivers of awareness racing everywhere on her overly sensitized body. The heat of his body wrapped around her, raising her temperature, and she feared she would have a hot flash for the first time in her middle-aged life. "I won't let you fall. I'll catch you." His words seduced her mind, and his hands, now soothing the aching muscles with slow even strokes, seduced her senses.

Was that a kiss she felt? She silenced the moan that rose against her will, and held her body still, waiting to see if that touch would be repeated. She felt him shift behind her, and...there. It was his lips, featherlight on her shoulder blade. Then...nothing. She tried to open her eyes, to see where he had gone, but could not seem to drag the lids apart.

"Lie down," he urged her, and raised her legs to help her.

"Bram..."

"Shhh! Let me take care of you," he said, his voice strangely hoarse. "I've been wanting to do that for a long time, and you've kept putting me off. It's time to let go. Let me show you how it feels to let someone else take charge of you."

He had been arranging her body as he spoke, and she felt his hands pull the straps of her tank top down and off her arms. He unhooked her bra and let it fall to the seat, and pushed his hands up her back in slow, even strokes, from the place where the waistband of her jeans sat snugly to her shoulder blades. Somewhere in the rational part of her brain, she thought she ought to be protesting, slapping his hands away, and inviting him to leave.

But the parts of her that were on fire for his touch shushed that kernel of common sense, shaming it into sitting quietly in the corner while she enjoyed the touch of a man's hands on her spine, the teasing of his fingertips against the sides of her breasts, and the kiss he dropped on the small of her back before he said,

"Shall I keep going, then?"

She noted with fierce female satisfaction that his voice now sounded much like it had the time he had been so ill with the flu and could hardly speak. She knew he was as aroused as he was making her, and wished she could touch him enough to make him want more as he was doing her. She settled for verbal sparring instead.

"Where were you planning to go?" she wondered, keeping her eyes closed.

A short, pregnant pause followed her question before she felt his breath on her cheek. "Where would you like me to go, sugar?"

She dared to turn onto her side, holding the cups of her bra in place with one hand, and reaching up to touch his cheek with the other. She had long since thrown caution to the winds, and now she wished to fully embrace her inner siren. She smiled as seductively as she knew how to at him, and replied, as she caressed his jaw,

"Wherever your little heart desires!"

She heard his gasp, but did not get a chance to savor the triumph she felt surging inside her before he swooped and pulled her up to his face so he could consume her. She felt like she had when he had been massaging her feet. No man had ever kissed her like he was kissing her. She felt like the most desirable woman in the world, and the way he held her, possessively, but with trembling hands, spoke of a depth of emotion that she had refused to acknowledge until this moment.

He pulled her into his lap — when had he sat down? — and sucked and licked and ate at her mouth as though he would never get his fill. She was overwhelmed, so much she could do no more than let him kiss her till her head spun. Such a cliche reaction, and for someone of her years to feel this way was a marvel she would ponder when her scattered mind came back to its senses.

For now, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back, as hungry for him as he was for her. This was no quiet, sedate desire. It was raw, ravenous, all-consuming lust. And she gloried in it when she felt his hand slip down to unfasten her jeans. For the first time in her life, she was ready to let the wanton loose inside her.

"If you promise to work up from my feet, I'll help you with that," she whispered into his mouth when he let her breathe.

She felt his smile against her lips, and licked the lower one, a cat savoring the cream. His answering groan rumbled in his throat as he accepted her invitation to go where he had not gone before. He captured her wandering tongue again, and she forgot to think.